Ahh! How many comics can a comic book store possibly have? Well, I guess the answer should be "a lot." And that's appropriate, cause, where I work, there are. When I tell people that I work in a comic book store they usually reply "oh that's so cool.. you get paid for reading comics!" This is not true. I wish it were, but it isn't: For the first week working at Paradise comics this year since returning from University (not counting the comic-con), my job was quite exerting. I've prepared a handy-dandy step-by-step rundown, in case you wanted to follow along: Step 1: Pick up box containing 200 comics off shelf. Step 2: Move box to another shelf for no apparent reason. Step 3: Move same box back to original shelf. Step 4: Are you about to pass out? If not, repeat steps 1 through 4. If so, procede to step 5. Step 5: Repeat steps 1 through 4 anyways. Now... moving boxes full of comics may hardly seem like a rigorous job, but remember who you're talking to. I could floss my teeth with my own arms. Callista Flockhart would have to be careful not to accidentally crush me when giving me hug. (Not that she ever does.. bitch.) Needless to say, this task took its toll on me. I would get home, and have to type on MSN with my nose because my arms would be so impotent. After about a week, all the boxes had been appropriately unarranged/rearranged. I don't think I gained any muscles from the experience, but I think I got a few nifty veins permanently visible in my neck. Thankfully, the time for lifting was over. Now began the process of alphabetizing. (HISTORICAL NOTE: At the beginning of last summer, Paradise comics had practically NO order to their comics.. just some-odd hundred boxes of random comics. In need of something to do for the summer, I came to them asking for a job. "Sure," the owner snickered, "why don't you... PUT EVERY COMIC IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER!" Oh, how they laughed. Young, naive, and assuming they were laughing with me and not at me, I got to work. By the end of the summer, Paradise comics had a system. From then on, if a customer asked them if they carried issue whatever of such-in-such comic, they would be able to actually find the comic. Now, I don't claim to be responsible for the alphabetization of Paradise Comics, but... actually, fuck it. Yeah, I do.) As you can imagine, it was impossible for me to continue alphabetizing Paradise Comic's ever-increasing stock of comics AND at the same time live in a different city, so naturally the task got delegated to others when I moved to Windsor for university. And man, have they fucked things up. Now that I'm back, I find neither rhyme nor reason to the arrangement of comics in the basement. I mean, there are some tricky aspects of alphabetizing comics- "does New X-men go under 'N' or 'X' since the numbering is essentially a continuation of X-men?" "Does 'Marvel comics Secret War' go under 'M' or 'S'?" And to problems such as these, I can understand some chaos. But GET YOUR FUCKING ALPHABET STRAIGHT, people! U comes after T. Namor comes before Nomad. Actually, when I think of it, I should have noticed the warning signs that the new employees were sketchy when, upon meeting one of them for the first time, I heard her say to Doug (the second-in-command, next to Pete, the owner) "I'm gonna put Wildstorm before Vertigo because Vertigo's darker." Great idea... what was I thinking putting the comics in such a complicated system as Alphabetical when I could have made things so much easier by putting comics in order from lightest to darkest content. I can see it now: Customer: Excuse me, do you have Amazing Spider-man issue 435? Aaron: Well, there's some mild violence in that one, so it'll be somewhere in the middle of the racks. Customer: Uh, thanks. Aaron: Oh wait, I just remembered: Spider-man says "damn" in it so it'll actually be closer to the back. Yeah that makes a lot of fucking sense. And you know what makes this even worse? I've been working here for longer than a lot of these people... but they get the cushy "sit behind a counter and read comic books" job while I toil in the basement. And they don't even LIKE comic books! Oh, and I get paid eight dollars an hour... half in comics. This actually isn't as bad as all that, as I've run up a humongous tab at Paradise and will probably take about a month to fully clear it. I actually asked them for a slight raise recently, and it went something along the lines of this: Aaron: Hey, Doug. Doug: What is it, Alan? Aaron: Um, would it be possible, since I've been working here for some time, for me, instead of getting paid four dollars an hour in cash and four in trade, to get, I dunno, four dollars in cash and FIVE dollars in trade? Just to help pay off my tab, you know. Doug: Get back to work. Why don't I just leave, you ask? Because if I did, I A) wouldn't be able to bitch about work, and B) couldn't say "I work in a comic book store." Which is something I like saying. I work in a comic book store.